Greetings! I am available as a music teacher and consultant in Scotland’s Central Belt and virtually from fall 2022.
Services I am able to offer include:
Please feel free to be in touch at benjamin.j.shute (at) gmail.com
Background information
As a violinist, I consider it a great asset to have studied with teachers representing a variety of schools of playing. My early instruction in Philadelphia with Lee Snyder, a Galamian student, gave me a sound technical foundation which I impart to my own students. Subsequently, my undergraduate teacher at the New England Conservatory, Masuko Ushioda, had begun her studies with an Auer pupil before continuing with Vaiman in St. Petersburg and later with Szigeti in Switzerland. Also at NEC, I had the privilege of studying with Lucy Chapman, an inspiringly well-rounded musician and teacher who had studied with Steinhardt at Curtis. I was also fortunate to spend two years studying in Freiburg with Rainer Kussmaul, a concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic and an early pioneer of period instruments. He had studied under Odnoposoff, himself a concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic and a student of Carl Flesch. This great diversity of influences has given me a broad understanding of the technical and musical possibilities of our instrument, upon which I draw to help students find solutions that are most fitting for them. I have taught students of all ages and abilities in repertoire from the 17th century to the present day, including concertos of Vivaldi, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Paganini, Mendelssohn, Bruch, Lalo, Goldmark, Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Dvorak, Sibelius, Elgar, Prokofiev, Barber, Kabalevsky, etc. It has been rewarding to see students with whom I have worked go on to further study at institutions including Juilliard, Eastman, the Cleveland Institute, Peabody, Boston Conservatory, Wheaton Conservatory, Northwestern University, Baylor University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Colorado—Boulder.
***
I began my involvement in historical performance practice in my mid-teens at Oberlin Conservatory’s Baroque Performance Instrument, working with luminaries of the American early music scene, including leaders of such ensembles as Philharmonia Baroque and Apollo’s Fire. Later in Germany I was deeply enriched by studies with Bernhard Forck (concertmaster of AKAMUS Berlin), Robert Hill (harpsichordist, formerly of Musica Antiqua Köln), and leading members of ensembles such as Freiburger Barockorchester, La Stagione Frankfurt, and the EU Baroque Orchestra. I was fortunate while on the faculty of Oklahoma City University (2019-22) that the university had a collection of fine period-instrument replicas with which I could introduce the study of period instruments into the violin and chamber music curricula, teaching repertoire from Biber to Mendelssohn.
***
After early introductions to composition and harmony, much of my learning as a composer was self-guided, consisting of many hours of score study, reading, and analytic listening, with subsequent studies in historical contrapuntal/compositional practices at the New England Conservatory with instructors including Lyle Davidson. I am prepared to guide students as they formulate their own musical voice within a variety of styles, bolstered by training in the fundamental practices of 16th-century counterpoint (the foundation of all subsequent Western practice), harmony, musical structure, etc.
***
In the area of musicology, I was fortunate to work closely with Helen Greenwald during doctoral studies at NEC, from whom I learned a great deal about the process of the scholarly editing of music as well as the editing of musicological writing. Published projects representative of my musicology experience to date include an interdisciplinary analytical-historical monograph on proposed theological underpinnings in Bach’s solo violin works, a reconstruction of a lost Bach concerto from extant sources (BWV 1052R), and a completion of an incompletely surviving Bach sinfonia (BWV 1045) based on structural clues from the surviving portion of manuscript. Other self-produced projects include an edition of Bologne’s Op. 1a sonatas that draws upon historical composition practices to correct extensive errors in the sole surviving period source. Fusing musicology and composition, I have also created various historically informed cadenzas and recreated the blank inner voices of the ouverture to the 17th-century Ballet de la Nuict.
Services I am able to offer include:
- Regular lessons in modern or baroque violin for students of all ages
- Consultation/coaching sessions, e.g., in preparation for auditions
- Coaching of pre-formed chamber ensembles
- Regular lessons in composition
- Consultation sessions to review specific compositions
- Consultation sessions on or editing of musicological projects
Please feel free to be in touch at benjamin.j.shute (at) gmail.com
Background information
As a violinist, I consider it a great asset to have studied with teachers representing a variety of schools of playing. My early instruction in Philadelphia with Lee Snyder, a Galamian student, gave me a sound technical foundation which I impart to my own students. Subsequently, my undergraduate teacher at the New England Conservatory, Masuko Ushioda, had begun her studies with an Auer pupil before continuing with Vaiman in St. Petersburg and later with Szigeti in Switzerland. Also at NEC, I had the privilege of studying with Lucy Chapman, an inspiringly well-rounded musician and teacher who had studied with Steinhardt at Curtis. I was also fortunate to spend two years studying in Freiburg with Rainer Kussmaul, a concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic and an early pioneer of period instruments. He had studied under Odnoposoff, himself a concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic and a student of Carl Flesch. This great diversity of influences has given me a broad understanding of the technical and musical possibilities of our instrument, upon which I draw to help students find solutions that are most fitting for them. I have taught students of all ages and abilities in repertoire from the 17th century to the present day, including concertos of Vivaldi, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Paganini, Mendelssohn, Bruch, Lalo, Goldmark, Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Dvorak, Sibelius, Elgar, Prokofiev, Barber, Kabalevsky, etc. It has been rewarding to see students with whom I have worked go on to further study at institutions including Juilliard, Eastman, the Cleveland Institute, Peabody, Boston Conservatory, Wheaton Conservatory, Northwestern University, Baylor University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Colorado—Boulder.
***
I began my involvement in historical performance practice in my mid-teens at Oberlin Conservatory’s Baroque Performance Instrument, working with luminaries of the American early music scene, including leaders of such ensembles as Philharmonia Baroque and Apollo’s Fire. Later in Germany I was deeply enriched by studies with Bernhard Forck (concertmaster of AKAMUS Berlin), Robert Hill (harpsichordist, formerly of Musica Antiqua Köln), and leading members of ensembles such as Freiburger Barockorchester, La Stagione Frankfurt, and the EU Baroque Orchestra. I was fortunate while on the faculty of Oklahoma City University (2019-22) that the university had a collection of fine period-instrument replicas with which I could introduce the study of period instruments into the violin and chamber music curricula, teaching repertoire from Biber to Mendelssohn.
***
After early introductions to composition and harmony, much of my learning as a composer was self-guided, consisting of many hours of score study, reading, and analytic listening, with subsequent studies in historical contrapuntal/compositional practices at the New England Conservatory with instructors including Lyle Davidson. I am prepared to guide students as they formulate their own musical voice within a variety of styles, bolstered by training in the fundamental practices of 16th-century counterpoint (the foundation of all subsequent Western practice), harmony, musical structure, etc.
***
In the area of musicology, I was fortunate to work closely with Helen Greenwald during doctoral studies at NEC, from whom I learned a great deal about the process of the scholarly editing of music as well as the editing of musicological writing. Published projects representative of my musicology experience to date include an interdisciplinary analytical-historical monograph on proposed theological underpinnings in Bach’s solo violin works, a reconstruction of a lost Bach concerto from extant sources (BWV 1052R), and a completion of an incompletely surviving Bach sinfonia (BWV 1045) based on structural clues from the surviving portion of manuscript. Other self-produced projects include an edition of Bologne’s Op. 1a sonatas that draws upon historical composition practices to correct extensive errors in the sole surviving period source. Fusing musicology and composition, I have also created various historically informed cadenzas and recreated the blank inner voices of the ouverture to the 17th-century Ballet de la Nuict.
